Ohio votes to establish abortion rights

Ohio voters on Tuesday approved a ballot measure enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution, according to The Associated Press, continuing a string of victories for abortion rights groups that have appealed directly to the public as they try to recover from the United States. States. The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.

Issue 1, as the ballot measure is known, had become the nation’s most-watched race in the off-year elections. Both parties want to gauge whether voters’ anger over the loss of federal abortion rights could help Democrats in next year’s presidential and congressional races. National groups on both sides of the debate have poured money into Ohio in recent weeks.

The victory in a conservative state will likely help boost the hopes of abortion rights groups who will push similar measures next year in red and purple states, including Arizona, South Dakota, Missouri and Florida.

“It’s not up to the government to decide what we do with our bodies,” said Alissa Carver, 26, who lives outside Cincinnati and describes herself as an independent voter. “It is up to us to decide, it is our experience.”

Wendy Pace, a 52-year-old independent, said she normally doesn’t vote in off-year elections but came out because she wanted to vote “yes” on Issue 1. “I have a teenage daughter and I don’t have any pretend rights be taken from me,” she said. “I fear this is just the beginning of rights being taken away, and I fear for my daughter and what her rights will be in the future.”

While abortion rights groups prevailed in six of six state ballot measures last year, Ohio was considered the toughest.

Republicans who control the state government had leaned on the power of their offices to try to thwart the measure, calling a special election in August to make voting changes harder to implement and purging voter rolls in recent weeks. They rewrote the language that appeared on the ballot and adopted terms from anti-abortion groups to stoke voters’ discomfort that the measure would lead to more abortions late in pregnancy. Such abortions are rare but extremely unpopular among Americans.

Abortion rights groups appealed to Americans’ innate aversion to government interference in health care, urging voters to keep politicians out of decision-making about their health and families.

That argument resonated with many ‘yes’ voters, across party lines.

“I’m a Christian, but I think about the long term: it’s between a person and their maker,” said Carolyn Lloyd, 54. Although she typically votes Republican, she said, “I would hate to see women suffer because of perhaps a moment of weakness or a malfunction of contraception and they have to bear that burden.”

In Shaker Heights, Maxine Williams, 82 and a Democrat, said she was “old enough to remember when women had to go underground and have these after-the-fact abortions.”

“Aren’t Republicans against government interference? Yet they do,” she said. “It baffles me that they behave this way.”

Greg Eubanks, a 58-year-old voter who described himself as “conservative, but pro-choice,” said he was convinced to vote “no” by opponents who claimed the amendment would eliminate parental notification laws on abortion and gender would allow. -transition care “without any form of parental guidance.” Constitutional scholars said the amendment would do neither, but Mr. Eubanks said “those things concern me.”

“Issue 1 has reached the point where I did not vote against it,” he said, “but I will lobby our Republican leaders to soften the language of current abortion restrictions, which are ridiculous.”

The measure was largely initiated by doctors, and was helped by public outrage over the impact of an abortion ban passed by the Legislature in 2019.

That ban, which prohibited abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy with almost no exceptions, was suspended pending a Supreme Court ruling but remained in effect for 82 days after Roe overturned it. At the time, the state made national headlines when a 10-year-old rape victim had to travel to Indiana for an abortion because Ohio doctors said they couldn’t provide one.

“I think mothers’ lives are important. I think babies’ lives are important. But if a little girl is raped at the age of 10, I don’t think she should be carrying the baby while she’s pregnant,” said Delena Reed, 65, a registered Republican who considers herself “pro-life” for religious reasons. .

The results of issue 1 will almost certainly require the court to invalidate the six-week ban.

The measure amends the state constitution to say that individuals have the right to make their own reproductive decisions, including about abortion. The state can ban abortion if the fetus is viable outside the womb – about 23 weeks – unless a pregnant woman’s doctor determines it is necessary to protect her health or life.

The success of Issue 1 shows how much the debate and dynamics around abortion have changed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe last year. Immediately after the decision in June 2022, abortion rights groups appeared to have little progress and focused primarily on filing lawsuits to try to stop the abortion ban, which went into effect in more than a dozen states.

Anti-abortion groups, riding on the back of their court victory, pushed through ballot measures saying there is no right to abortion in the state constitutions of Kentucky and Kansas. But after these measures failed and ballot measures to establish abortion rights were successful, anti-abortion groups have gone on the defensive.

Still, the power of ballot measures to restore abortion rights and help Democrats may be limited. There are roughly ten states that allow citizen-sponsored ballot measures and also restrict abortion. And support for measures promoting abortion rights in other states has not always translated into support for Democratic candidates.

Anti-abortion groups are already looking ahead and trying to block future ballot initiatives. In states like Missouri and Arizona, they have started “decline to sign” campaigns, hoping to convince voters not to sign the petitions needed to put the measures on the ballot.

Rachel Richardson And Daniel McGraw contributed to this story.